Crazytown

I’ve been dealing with a sore molar for a couple weeks. I held off going to the dentist because we had our semi-annual cleanings scheduled for this week on Wednesday. So yeah, when I sat in the chair for my cleaning, the exam showed that the molar was broken in half. An achey-breaky tooth! I got the cleaning done, and the next day I went back for a root canal, crown AND had one of my wisdom teeth pulled (now I have only one left). Wow -  five hours in the dentist’s chair! All I can say is thank goodness for laughing gas and numbing shots. I had a great time, and I’m not even kidding! I have to go back in two weeks so they can check on the healing of my gums where the wisdom tooth was, and for them to replace another old crown that needs it (no root canal). 💸

The funny thing is that the drilling of the root canal reminded me of being home because the day before,  the contractors demolished our old stone fireplace (complete with lichens that grew on the stones). We’re in the midst of the living room remodel. We are also updating both bathrooms, one at a time of course. 

Old fireplace with hearth and mantel already gone

The new fireplace is drywalled . The tiling and flooring will begin next week.

Main bath ready for painting and wallpaper removal.

So all of that has been going on while I’ve been trying to get some sewing done. I managed, over the last two-three weeks, to finish sewing and trimming 60 string blocks (6.5”) for Quilts for Kids. 

Do you see any fabrics that are familiar to you?  Anyway, I was pleased at how much room this cleared in my brown scrap bin. I think I may continue to work on dark neutrals in November for the Rainbow Scrap Challenge.

My friend Ruby will be spending several days quilting next week, so she challenged me to get as many tops and backs done this week as possible to keep her busy. Of course she did. As if construction, dentist AND writing the monthly HOA newsletter weren’t enough.

So here’s a picture of the pile of three flimsies and backs that I have done at the moment. 

Top: Bright on Black frogs with lots of coordinating strips. Fabric donation courtesy of Wanda.

Middle: Veggie Garden Strippie with yellow and red accents

Bottom: Hollow Nines (an RSC project for this year) plus a coordinating bright-on-black print.

I’ll show the actual finishes next week if all goes to plan. Then there’s this chicken quilt fabric that was screaming at me (clucking at me?) to get it done. It still needs a couple rows and the borders attached, but it’ll be ready for Ruby to take when she gets here on Sunday for our Church of Bernina sewing day.

Today (Friday as I write this post) I wrote the monthly newsletter for our HOA. So between that and this blog post, I’m just about out of words. But even with all the noise, aches, dust, chores and words, life is good!

Have a great week. Linking up to Scrappy Saturday with the Rainbow Scrap Challenge peeps. 

Lots of Quilt Finishes

It was a good week for quilt finishes, because my friend Ruby brought back several she’d finished longarm quilting, and I just needed to bind and label them. 

The first one was the quilt that was mostly comprised of Block of the Month blocks. Glad to see this one in the rear-view mirror!  I’m donating it - like all the others below - to Quilts for Kids. 

This next one was the lavender strings and orange quilt that I showed as a top last week. 

And then there was the pile of mostly-Tula Pink fabric scraps that I wrestled into a coherent quilt. It was so much fun to puzzle this one out. The finished size is roughly 38x46”.

I’m not showing several of the quilts that Cousin Kim, Ruby and I finished over the last ten days or so. Two of them were cheater panels that we backed and quilted. They were donated to us, and we figured why not move them along. They’ll be just as cuddly for some child. Other ones were group efforts, like the one below. I kitted this up from my stash, Ruby sewed and quilted it, then I bound and labeled it. The colors aren’t accurate but close enough. 

My design board currently houses my Hollow Nines and Company blocks, ready for webbing. 

But I’ve been sewing brown string blocks all week, and I want to finish those up before I begin this. Finishing the brown strings will enable me to clean up a bigger mess, so it got higher priority!

Saturday (today) is our last Quilts for Kids workshop this year before we take our holiday hiatus. Cousin Kim and I are going, along with niece Jenny. After the workshop, we’re going to Pirate O’s to shop for exotic foods (it’s the only place in the Salt Lake Valley I can find the cookies I used to love went I went to summer school in Austria - in 1970!). We’ll also shop for Christmas foods and have lunch there. Fun!

My friend Chris and I went walking this week to our favorite new discovery - a woodsy little park in the neighborhood about three blocks away from our condos. I had to take a picture (and I’ll show you why in a minute…)

Isn’t it lovely? It reminded me of this meme that Kim sent me ….

So, I’ll just leave you with that little chuckle. Have a great week!  I’m linking up to Scrappy Saturday, where we’re all endeavoring to finish up our scrappy quilts.

Catching Up Because I was Lazy Last Week

I didn’t post last weekend because I was lazy. Yes, I had actually sewn and accomplished quite a bit, but on Friday night, when I usually prepare the post, I was just too tired and went to bed instead. Oh, the joys of aging! But I’m back now with lots of photos from the last two weeks, so grab your favorite beverage and get comfortable. 

First, let’s get caught up with my Rainbow Scrap Challenge blocks. October is for dark neutrals and catching up on any missed colors or blocks from throughout the year. I chose to work on paring down my gray and brown scraps this month. To that end, I finished up the last four Gameboard blocks I’ll need, two in brown and two in gray. They will finish at 8”. 

And then I put them up on the design board for their class picture. They will now wait their turn to be assembled at some later point, likely in the new year. 

And while I was taking class pictures, here are the Rolling Stone blocks for the year. These are 12” blocks, arranged sideways because of my limited space. Like the Gameboard blocks above, these will be assembled later. As you’ll see below and in the coming weeks, I have other priorities to sew first. 

While I had my gray scraps out, I sewed 15 string blocks at 6.5”. I decided to put them directly into one of my homemade kid quilt kits, shown below. I realized that I was not making much progress with these baggies of fabrics that I was calling “kits”. So, my goal for the next couple months - or however long it takes me - is to revisit every single themed gallon-sized bagged group of fabrics and scraps and actually decide on a pattern and cut out all the pieces. Then I’ll write up some rudimentary assembly notes. In other words, the old bags of fabrics are being turned into actual kits, ready to sew. Cousin Kim, Ruby and I will all pick from these and hope to each sew a couple of these per month. So here is the first one - gray and aqua elephants - including all cut blocks, borders and backing. Sorry for the bad lighting.

Here’s the next group of old fabric baggies to work on. Ruby and Kim each picked out two from these last week, and I’ve converted those to actual kits for them to sew as they can. 

This is one of the kits that Kim picked - it’s #13 in the top left of the picture above. Because it consisted of a lot of width-of-fabric (WOF) pieces, I went with a simple Strippie layout. I snapped this picture after all the pieces were cut, but before I bagged it up. The pieces are just pinned up for reference (only half the width shows - I was just working the pieces to get to a certain length). 

Below is the group of scraps and strips I decided to work on myself earlier this week. This is before I started the serious sorting and auditioning, deleting what didn’t work and hunting for any possible additions. 

This is what I ended up with, and it’s now ready to be quilted. 

But wait, there’s more!  Below is a little Strippie that Ruby sewed and quilted from one of my kits. I bound it, and we’ll turn it in to Quilts for Kids next week.

Remember the 15 lavender string blocks below from a couple months ago? I combined them with some fabric scraps for this cute little quilt top. Ruby has it now for quilting. She also has my Block of the Month quilt. If I get those two back from her when she’s here tomorrow, I can get them bound in time for next weekend’s blog post and QFK workshop. 

We’ve had lots and lots of rain here (thank goodness!) and more expected next week. It’s been a glorious autumn so far. The cats love that I’ve plugged in their heated beds. Everyone and everything is cozy!

Today I have daffodil and tulip bulbs to plant out in the courtyard, and then food prep (Mexican enchilada casserole, sides, fruit and a chocolate pie). My son Ryan and daughter-in-law are coming over for dinner tonight. 

No word yet on when the living room fireplace rebuild will start. We’re still waiting for the brick to arrive from Arizona. My late brother’s estate (probate) closed last week, so I’ve had a lot of paperwork with that. We got our flu and Covid shots last week and have routine dentist visits this coming week. Just life things. 

I’ll leave you with a picture of this lovely rose. My garden revived itself once the hundred degree (F) temperatures passed in September. This was taken on Thursday. 

Have a great week, and be sure to check out some of the other great Rainbow Scrap quilts coming together over at Scrappy Saturday. 

Some Sewing, Some Sleeping.

First, let’s talk about the sewing. I was in a sewing frenzy over the last weekend and Monday, and churned out 60 string blocks at 6.5”. Four safety-pinned sets of 15 green blocks. As Bruce would say, “They are a thing of beauty!” Haha. 

For some reason - I think it was my grandson’s wedding quilt I was working on last spring - I never did much with greens when they first came around. So, I’m making up for lost time. I am also working in October to finish up the block sets I need for this year’s projects. Next up was five green Hollow Nines blocks. 

All I have left to complete this block set is 6 blue Hollow Nines, which are waiting with pieces neatly stacked for my next sewing session. All year I’ve had no plan for these blocks, which will total 40 when the blue ones are sewn. But then I saw a picture of a quilt somewhere (Pinterest maybe?) that was perfect, and Ruby had just brought over a bolt of brights-on-black fabric for us to gift to Quilts for Kids. So I cut off about 2-3 yards, and this is the plan in its rough stage:

I’ll alternate the nine-patches with the print fabric for a quilt with 80 squares set 8x10. That’ll yield a kid quilt measuring roughly 48x60”. Simple, bright, effective. 

I did have a single finish, my first of October. This quilt measures about 40x58” or so, if I recall correctly. And with my cat Darla asleep on my lap as I write this post, I’m not getting up to check my records!

The back needed an insert, but I had the perfect green scrap chunk for it. 

The only other thing I got done was sewing together the inner portion of this Block of the Month quilt. I ran out of the cute Tula Pink Fairy Frost fabric for the inter stop border, so I’ll be using plain white. Both that and the outer colored border are cut, and the backing is ready to be sewn too. Again, the backing will need a vertical insert strip because these quilts are being made intentionally “medium kid”-sized. The tops are better suited to slightly older kids, not baby or toddler kids.

The color for October in the Rainbow Scrap Challenge is Neutrals, which I was planning on anyway. I have four more Gameboard block to finish for that set. Two will be done in browns and two in grays this month. Then I’ll be focusing on trimming down by brown scraps drawer. I can’t even get all the stuff in the drawer. I hope I can remember to get Before and After pix of the brown scraps! I think I’ll be trying to sew 2-3 little quilts this month in brown with other colors. Like brown and pink; browns and golds, and maybe brown and… blue? Green? Whatever wants to come play. I’ve picked out some simple designs - checkerboards, rail fence, and chunky patchwork. 

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Some Sleeping?

The Operative word this week was “some”. I had a cortisone shot in my shoulder this week, and a few of you may know how cortisone can play havoc with your sleep. At least on the first night of the day you’ve had the shot. But the old cortisone-by-pill routine was worse because it lasted longer, along with frazzled days and brain fog. Well, I got through a sleepless night (does 30 minutes count?). 

The next day, ironically, I got the results of my recent mid-September sleep study. I’ve used a CPAP for 25 years this month. It was time for a new machine, which Medicare allows once every 5 years upon a sleep study. My machine is 6 years old and decidedly noisy. Imagine my surprise (and elation), when the results showed that I no longer have OSA - Obstructive Sleep Apnea. I did have a few minutes of low oxygen saturation in the 7.75 hours of the sleep study, but not to the length or level of their minimum standard. So, I’ll just elevate my upper body slightly going forward, and that’s it. The doctors attribute the results mainly to my weight loss of about 3 years ago (70 lbs, most but not all of which is still gone and I’m holding steady).

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The start of our remodeling has been delayed by 3 weeks because the ceramic bricks have to be shipped in from Arizona since the local distributor was out. The re-facing and new hearth of the fireplace will be first, and then they’ll replace the living room carpet with flooring. Once that gets going, the main bath will be next - just cabinet and wall painting and a grab bar in the shower area. 

We’re still waiting for the final bid on the master bath, which will be a more complete re-do; flooring, cabinets and counters, a new mirror, and new tile flooring. Only the existing shower and toilet will stay. I’m anxious to get the “show on the road”. 

That’s all from here. Today I plan to do the fall clean-up of the courtyard. Not sure yet if that will include putting the patio furniture to bed for the season. I’m thinking not. I’d also like to go grab some more bulbs to plant and see if perennials are on sale yet. Wish me luck. Have a great week!

Feeling Fallish

Well, that was a quick summer. And a hot one too. So far the autumn has been nice, with warm, sunshiney days alternating with cool and often rainy evenings. Perfect in my book. I’m happy as long as I can get out and exercise those new knees! Even Bruce has started walking out and about again. His back bothers him somewhat (whose doesn’t when they’re seniors?!), but the benefit outweighs the discomfort.

On to the sewing that happened this week. First up, I stitched three Rolling Stone blocks in yellow and gold. That was the color of the month in August for the Rainbow Scrap Challenge (RSC), but I did purple then. So now I’m doing yellow. These blocks finish at 12”.

Earlier in the year when we did green, I only made one green block for some reason. So, since I was on a roll with the Rolling Stone blocks (pun definitely intended), I finished up three green blocks, which completes my set of 20.

When I get around to assembly (likely next year), they will be set 4x5 for a quilt that measures approximately 48x60”. 

I also sewed just four Hollow Nine blocks at 6.5” each, unfinished size.

These will continue on this year and next until I decide what to do with them. Use as is? Use them as the center of a larger block? Who knows… I sure don’t!

No progress was made on the Block of the Month quilt top I’m assembling. I just didn’t feel like working on it this week. Here’s a reminder of what that one looks like as it hogs up my design board..

Instead, I had the itch to finish out my yellow/gold scrap sewing by playing with my crumbs. I was able to sew 15 blocks (an entire set to go into a Quilts for Kids kit) at 6.5”.

Nothing much else is going on with us, and that’s alright with me. The “same old same old” routine of HOA Board meetings, Weight Watchers, medical appointments (think booster shots and cortisone injections), outdoor walks, and “Church of Bernina” sewing days lend a pleasant rhythm to the weeks. And pssssst - keep this a secret, OK? - I am even feeling the fall nesting urge to do some batch cooking in the next week or two. I’m planning on lasagna, meatloaf, enchiladas, oatmeal cookies and a pot roast in my October. Bruce is rooting for the cookies in September. Could happen!

Catching My Breath

It was another busy week around here, but the rest of September looks to be finally settling down. Our family visitor from Arizona, Bruce’s older brother Marv, ended up arriving on Friday and leaving for home on Sunday morning after his high school reunion. He originally planned to stay about a week, but the travel wasn’t agreeing with him (he’s almost 83) and just wanted to get home. So the visit was short and sweet and Bruce and I may or may not have given each other a high five when he pulled out. Don’t judge; there are so many things I am not sharing! 

Other happenings this week that were fun: taking a landscaping class at a local garden center, playing cards with my friends at the clubhouse and picking out all the rest of the things for the upcoming remodel of the two bathrooms, living room floors and fireplace, as well as carpet for the master bedroom. The electrical work in the bathrooms (adding outlets and covering others, changing switchplates) has been completed. I also had a nice lunch out with one of my sons on Friday. Not so fun was my sleep study in order to get a new CPAP machine, but it wasn’t bad. The worst part was having to go check out the equipment at the hospital and then return it the next morning. On Saturday (tomorrow morning as I write this on Friday evening) a friend and I are going to the Jordan Valley Water Conservation Garden Park at the south end of the Salt Lake Valley to check out their water-wise gardens, weather permitting. It’s been raining a lot here lately, so we’ll see. Rather ironic, I think, if we were to get rained out.

But I managed to squeeze in some sewing this weekend, which is always fun. Not too much sewing, but then it was more than I thought would happen. I finally trimmed up the 45 yellow string blocks from the previous week and added another set of 15. So, here’s a total of 60 string blocks, pinned in sets of 15 for our Quilts for Kids chapter to use in kits. 

I always like to look at others’ pictures of quilt blocks or scraps to see if I have any of them in my stash. Do any of these yellow or gold fabrics live in your stash too?

My goal at the beginning of the month was to finish the final four blocks I needed for the Block of the Month class I took over the last year. I hated several of the blocks the instructor chose, so I decided to do my own. Last week I didn’t show any because I never got time to work on them. But this past week I got the last three sewn up. So here are those three blocks, which will each finish at 12” in the quilt.

This next one was easy-peasy, and is a contender I’m considering as one of my Rainbow Scrap Challenge blocks for 2027.

The next block is an RSC27 contender too. I think if I do select it, I’d use a multi-colored print as the center and constant (wherever the maroon dotted print is) and then use 2 different but complementing shades of any given color each month. 

So anyway, here are all 12 blocks together as I begin the assembly of the top. Right now, the only sewn sashings are the vertical strips between the blocks. Everything else is just pinned.

On the right is the backing batik fabric I’ll use, and on the left is what I’ll use as the outer border after I get the sashings and stop border sewn on.

My hope is to get some serious sewing done next week, if the sewing gods will cooperate. I think we have a plumber coming this weekend to move our sprinkler shut-off valve up from the crawl space to under the kitchen sink.  I’m also getting a haircut this weekend and attending our HOA Board meeting on Monday - my first as Vice President. Our President seems to think that I’m going to be his b*tch - he asked me to organize a going-away party for our trash collector person. Seriously? I suggested we meet him when he drives into the complex for his last garbage collection and serenade him with “For He’s a Jolly Good Fellow” on kazoos! Yes, that’s a joke - and it’s going to remain that way. I’m going to just say I thought he (the President) was joking. We all have more important business, right? Right.

Have a great week, friends. I’m linking up to Scrappy Saturday for the Rainbow Scrap Challenge. 

Some Progress

I didn’t have much time for sewing this week. It was the first of two weeks of crazy obligations - HOA meetings, spreadsheets and parties, doctor appointments (for us and for the cats coming up next week), meetings with our contractors for the remodeling that will start soon (2 bathrooms, the living room floors and fireplace, and some new carpet in the master bedroom), family visiting us from Arizona, a landscaping class I’m taking with a couple friends, and the usual weekly to-do’s like walking, cards at the clubhouse (I’m opening and closing for that this month), and Weight Watchers. There are 2-3 things on the calendar for every day until the last week of the month. So far, I’m juggling managing just fine - the walking really helps clear my mind. At this point, I’m really looking forward to winter “slow time”! Or even just the end of the month. 

One thing I did sew on this week on Sunday and whenever I could grab a half hour here or there, was yellow string blocks. The infusion of scraps from Quilts for Kids at the beginning of May before my last knee surgery has my string bins overflowing. I finished 45 string blocks for Quilts for Kids - 3 sets of 15 blocks that will finish at 6”.  I’ll do another set of 15 next week and leave the rest for next year. But I know that they will multiply in the intervening time!! 

I haven’t trimmed the blocks yet, so I’m just going to show you a picture of the blocks pressed with papers removed. I’ll trim them when I’m at the QFK workshop today. And probably sew up some more multi-colored string blocks. 

The only other thing was trimming and binding the Purple Unicorns little quilt. It finished at 40.5x 50”.

That’s about it from here. I’m grateful that our weather has cooled down. Late summer and autumn are so beautiful here in Northern Utah. Even down here in the valley, the colors are beginning to show. Life really is very good. 

Linking to Scrappy Saturday and the Rainbow Scrap Challenge.